Middle Eastern Realities

Obama is defining our culture with his vindictive assaults on individuals

The human brain is a complicated organ. It can be infinitely pliable but also maddeningly rigid.

Humans can be slow to recognize signs of imminent disaster. While red flags are flapping wildly in the wind, the person ignores any and all warnings.

But the brain can be highly suggestible, too, easily controlled and shaped by advertisers and spin doctors. Thus, after countless ads, a person associates soda with Coke, search engines with Google. And after having “Yes we can,” burned into their neural pathways, all hope and change is connected to Obama.

That’s why it’s crucial to notice all the “firsts.” Because once something is repeated often enough, it becomes the New Normal.

Decades ago, the first rap song that celebrated beating “ho’s” and shooting cops was shocking. But after the umpteenth song, the lyrics may no longer startle.

But while things have been going downhill for decades, ever since Obama arrived on the scene, the assaults have come fast and furiously. First it was the trashing of Hillary. When her abuse was pooh-poohed by those who could have done something about it, like Obama himself, that just emboldened the radicals. Their getting away with (soul) murder led to even more sexually threatening behavior toward Sarah Palin.

Another example: It used to be off-limits for the president and Congress to target private citizens. Not any longer. It’s now open season on anyone who dares to disagree.

Posted By Conn Carroll On May 10, 2010 @ 9:37 am In Rule of Law | 35 Comments

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According to multiple[2]sources[3], at 10 am today President Barack Obama will announce his decision to name Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Kagan, who served as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009, would be the first justice without judicial experience in almost 40 years. But this does not mean she is in any way a stranger to the Senate confirmation process. In fact, in 1995 she authored an article[4] on judicial confirmations for the University of Chicago Law Review where she wrote:

The Bork hearings presented to the public a serious discussion of the meaning of the Constitution, the role of the Court, and the views of the nominee; that discussion at once educated the public and allowed it to determine whether the nominee would move the Court in the proper direction. Subsequent hearings have presented to the public a vapid and hollow charade, in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis. Such hearings serve little educative function, except perhaps to reinforce lessons of cynicism that citizens often glean from government. … [T]he fundamental lesson of the Bork hearings [is] the essential rightness—the legitimacy and the desirability—of exploring a Supreme Court nominee’s set of constitutional views and commitments.

On this point, we find agreement with Ms. Kagan. As we documented first with the Justice Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings[5], and again with the University of California at Berkeley law school Associate Dean Goodwin Liu hearings[6], President Obama’s leftist legal nominees have been completely unwilling and unable to defend their liberal legal views from Senate questioning. Instead they have retreated or renounced their past writings in an all too familiar spectacle that Kagan has said: “takes on an air of vacuity and farce.” We sincerely hope that Kagan continues to reject this model and that the U.S. Senate fulfills its proper advice and consent[7] role. Responding to the news of Kagan’s nomination, Former Attorney General Ed Meese released the following statement:

First and foremost, any nominee to a lifetime appointment to the United States Supreme Court must demonstrate a thorough fidelity to apply the Constitution as it was written, rather than as they would like to re-write it. Given Solicitor General Kagan’s complete lack of judicial experience, and, for that matter, very limited litigation experience, Senators must not be rushed in their deliberative process. Because they have no prior judicial opinions to look to, Senators must conduct a more searching inquiry to determine if Kagan will decide cases based upon what is required by the Constitution as it is actually written, or whether she will rule based upon her own policy preferences.

Though Ms. Kagan has not written extensively on the role of a judge, the little she has written is troubling. In a law review article, she expressed agreement with the idea that the Court primarily exists to look out for the “despised and disadvantaged.” The problem with this view—which sounds remarkably similar to President Obama’s frequent appeals to judges ruling on grounds other than law–is that it allows judges to favor whichever particular client they view as “despised and disadvantaged.” The judiciary is not to favor any one particular group, but to secure justice equally for all through impartial application of the Constitution and laws. Senators should vigorously question Ms. Kagan about such statements to determine whether she is truly committed to the rule of law. Nothing less should be expected from anyone appointed to a life-tenured position as one of the final arbiters of justice in our country.

The American people agree. According to a national post-election 2008 survey of 800 actual voters, the polling company, inc.[8] found that 70% of respondents preferred that judges not base their decisions on personal views and feelings. And according to the latest Quinnipiac University Poll[9] by a 16 point margin more Americans believe the Supreme Court should only consider the original intentions of the authors of the Constitution instead of considering changing times and current realities. And finally, the latest Gallup poll[10] shows that more Americans “would prefer a new Supreme Court justice who makes the court more conservative (42%) over one who would make the Court more liberal (27%).” Let’s hope the Senate gives the American people what they want.

Quick Hits:

Acknowledging that current law enforcement tools are inadequate for “dealing with international terrorism” Attorney General Eric Holder told ABC’s This Week that the Obama administration is considering pursuing an expansion of the “public safety exception” to Miranda[11] warnings.

Holder also acknowledged that, contrary to earlier public statements that the bomber had acted alone, the United States had “developed evidence that shows the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack[12].”